Behind the Curtain of my Double Life.

In lieu of communications  class this week, I was servicing my alter ago [or major, that is] by performing in the SMU Meadows Dance Spring Hope Show. With rehearsal stemming from the begining of January almost every night of the week including a sprinkling of Saturday mornings, its pretty obvious to the university and the surrounding community that this show is a pretty big deal... at least the dancers hope so.

The program consisted of 5 pieces: Prayers, choreographed by Jessica Lang, Vigland's Garden by SMU faculty member, Christopher Dolder, Letters to Camille by SMU faculty member, Jean Paul Comelin, No Contact, by SMU student, Jamal White-Jackson and two special performances of Martha Graham's Panorama.

Having danced and thus performed for a great majority of my life [going on 15 years], one might assume the thrill, nausea, disappointment, and euphoria of rehearsing and performing a piece in front of a large group of people would diminish over time... it doesn't. I've never met a dancer [unless they are in their thrid straight year of a 36-show run of the Nutcracker] that doesn't feel the rush of urgency and slight panic of "wait, what are the steps?!" before they go on stage.

The feeling of unity that encompasses dancers who perform in a show, however, add in an injury that forces the casts of various pieces to rearrange choreography in the midst of the run and the feeling of unity transforms into a crisis-managing support group. On Saturday morning each dancer received an email announcing an emergency warm up and rehearsal schedule to change formations and casting to cover one of our own.

Regardless of the complications, the Spring Hope Show was ultimately a success, and nothing seems more rewarding than feeling of accomplishment after a long and tiresome run. Read the SMU Daily Campus review here.